Apple VS Google: Google Voice apps pulled from store

I’d rather not spray TouchMyApps with my opinion on where the platform is headed due to Apple’s short-sightedness, so I will opt rather, for one word which sums up my thoughts: phewy! Apple have become famous for sticking it to devs both big and small, the latest of which is the Moby Dick of developers: Google. According to Apple, apps which utilise Google’s Voice app, “duplicate features that come with the iPhone”. Perhaps they are referring to Free SMS? Cheap long distance? The virtual ability to switch carriers? Are Apple referring to those abilities, because when I review AT&T’s iPhone plan, there isn’t a hint of formal ‘duplication’ of any features, rather, a healthy slathering of innovation.

Adding to the issue is Apple’s apparent ambivalence towards Google’s Voice app. Evidently, Apple’s Senior VP, Phil Schiller, gave a nod toward the app back in April; if rejection of the app can follow approval from as near the top as a person can get, something is wonky.

Not that it matters. Both Apple and AT&T don’t seem to get it. The mobile future isn’t going to be run by companies who reign in customers with the long claws. It will flourish in an environment of competitive pricing, competitive features, and customer-approval. It has to because technology will outpace grandfathered corporations whose plans are antiquated to say the least.

All it will take is an adventurous and forward-thinking company to provide inexpensive admission to wireless connectivity, or in what amounts to too Utopian a thought, a community run wireless internet system which spans cities as seen in Cory Doctorow’s Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town.